Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Gallagher: SCOTUS Declares War on Half of Americans

Maggie Gallagher, founder of the National Organization for Marriage, has already declared that the Supreme Court’s marriage equality rulings were a “fatwa” against those who oppose marriage equality, now she says they are a “declaration of war” against them too.

The more of this kind of rhetoric I hear, the giddier I get. They’re just so desperate, aren’t they? Come on Maggie, when the Supreme Court ruled that federal law trumps California’s medical marijuana laws, also passed by popular referendum, was that a “fatwa” and a “declaration of war” against those who favored those laws? Or does your argument magically only apply when you disagree with the ruling? Please explain why the Supreme Court striking down a law is only a violation of “democratic rights” when you agree with the law being challenged.

Comments

I mean, it was one thing when most people were pretty ignorant about homosexuality and were open to suggestions that same sex marriage might have unpleasant repercussions.

But now that the evangelical hysteria ratchets upwards, people are going to kind of notice that, no, no one is going jail for saying homosexuality is a sin, churches are being closed down, and absolutely no one has disappeared into a FEMA camp, and they are going to say, “what the hell is wrong with these people!”

Why, it’s almost as if they never actually intended to politically relevant, but always saw this as a gimmick to con money out of the rubes!

people are going to kind of notice that, no, no one is going jail for saying homosexuality is a sin

I’m guessing part of this is generational; the older generation typically making these claims still doesn’t grasp just how easily the younger generation can access global information via the net. Your typical 40-50 year-old political operative is probably used to an anecdotal story being able to last for weeks or months before being refuted – and by that time, nobody cares. The vote’s been taken or the money’s been collected. They did not grow up in a culture where fact checking can be done by any audience member, with a common device in their pocket, before the operative has even finished their speech.

Yet another reason why the GOP is going to have demographic problems going forward. Blatant untruths are always going to play well with the faithful, but (IMO…probably…) they are not going to work as well on young moderates as they have in the past on older moderates.

From what I’ve heard, the winger bigots are freaking out because Justice Kennedy said DOMA was (paraphrase) discriminatory, hateful and demeaning. Scalia then whined about how this simple observation of fact meant that Kennedy was calling Christians the “enemy of humanity” or something.

Because passing hateful, harmful legislation to take away rights is fine, but criticizing and overturning that legislation makes the baby Jesus cry. Or something.

Fact is, I don’t even know what to say about fundie bullshit anymore. They’re just going to keep doubling down, keep getting more hateful, and there seems to be no end to it.

I have no idea how Mr. Brayton reports on this stuff every day without getting burned out.

From what I’ve heard, the winger bigots are freaking out because Justice Kennedy said DOMA was (paraphrase) discriminatory, hateful and demeaning. Scalia then whined about how this simple observation of fact meant that Kennedy was calling Christians the “enemy of humanity” or something.

Personally speaking, I’d have no problem with some Christians receiving such a designation.

Honestly, I think we’re going to have to wait for an entire generation to die off before we stop hearing about how the end is nigh because of the gay cooties. These people are going to be screeching about this until they draw their last breath.

when the Supreme Court ruled that federal law trumps California’s medical marijuana laws, also passed by popular referendum, was that a “fatwa” and a “declaration of war” against those who favored those laws?

Of course it’s a war, between incompatible views of society and indeed humanity. Doesn’t the title of this blog implicitly acknowledge that?

“Violation of democratic rights” is just the handy rhetoric of wartime propaganda.

I agree with Ed. This stuff is entertaining precisely because it is the death rattle of another form of bigotry. I think the amasingly quick turn around in public opinion on this issue was largely due to the noxious rhetoric of the Religious Right and, now that they are amping up the rhetoric to new lows, even more people may come down on the side of marriage equality and look askance at the right’s other bugaboos.

Gay couples applying for a marriage license, clerks issuing a license, and members of the clergy performing gay wedding are defined as committing felonies. If that doesn’t qualify as “animus” for the US Supreme Court, I don’t know what does.

This is just waiting for a huge ACLU and Supreme Court case. But who wants to risk being charged with a felony? That, of course, is the point: shut up, queers.

@15, “Indiana has turned gay marriage into a political crime” — can anyone find the specific law (statute, whatever) and put it in context? What I’m wondering is whether clergy performing gay weddings is limited to their signing the (illegal) marriage license, or if Indiana is actually criminalizing performing the ceremony itself, even without a marriage license?

I totally agree that the whole thing constitutes animus. Sheesh. But for the state to dictate who may or may not have a “church wedding,” if the state’s marriage license is not involved…. I’m pretty sure there are clergy (and members of non-clergy groups, like Friends) who would not only risk but welcome being charged with a felony, in order to defend the free excercise clause.

Nah in 5 or 10 years time idiots like Mrs. Srivastav will be rattling off in the wings, while the GOP mainstream will be saying ‘We invented gay rights, and by the way we’ve also always been at war with Eurasia’.
Dingo

The story from Indiana is being badly misreported. The law is about providing false information on an application for a wedding license and about anyone authorized to solemnize weddings (not just clergy) doing so for an illegal wedding. The law is not new, and the recent change is just a reclassification of the penalties (actually making them marginally lighter). It’s also not specifically about same-sex marriages, but any illegal marriages, for example lying about one’s age on a marriage license application, or performing a wedding for an underage couple. So the law is really just about providing fraudulent info to the state or helping someone violate state marriage laws. And amyone who officiates at a “gay wedding” without a marriage license–i.e., a commitment ceremony that doesn’t attempt to create a legal marriage of a type thatvis banned–is nit in violation of the law.

Indiana does ban SSM, and that does need to change. But this revision of Indiana law is not in any way a new attacknon SSM, and the reporting I’ve seen is just appallingly misleading.

Peter Truong, a 21-year-old computer programmer, considers himself married through the simple exchange of vows between him and his partner. He wants the legal status, but never wanted to have a marriage performed in a church because, he said, he constantly hears the disgust most churches and churchgoers have for him.
“I believe that when the church can love, can tolerate, can be non-discriminatory and non-biased,” Truong said, “then maybe they can start preaching that themselves. I just think the church is so damn hypocritical.
“I believe in God, I just don’t believe the church is correctly representing him. I think they’re using God as an excuse for their own intolerance and hatred.”
“It’ll take a while, but I think it’s impossible to deny that not giving same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples is an infringement of civil rights.”

A shiny child’s bike lies on its side on the front lawn of an immaculate garden.
Around the back gay dads Pete and Mark chase their son’s pet chickens around, trying to catch them.
Drake, 5, exclaims that the little birds are too fast for him.
It’s a happy, relaxed family scene. But it wasn’t an easy road to get there. After many hurdles Drake was born by surrogacy in Russia.
…

What followed was two and a half years of bureaucracy before the child received permanent Australian residency and another year before he got citizenship.
On arrival in Australia customs quizzed Mark and Pete for hours. Police were also sent around to their house on a Sunday morning to investigate.
“When people see two guys together, you know it’s like, ‘Where’s his mother?’ We’ve had a lot of people ask that,” Pete said.
“I think that even if one of us was a woman, we wouldn’t have had the same suspicions and problems that we went through.”
Thinking back to the police visit, Pete said the police seemed to want reassurance that the situation was ‘right’.

They checked if the couple had equipment to raise a child like a bed, clothes and bottles.
Mark said he’s sure that they were under suspicion of paedophilia. But despite the difficulties, he said the couple would do it again with no hesitation.
“We’re a family just like any other family,” he said with pride.

Standing before an American court convicted of the most heinous of child sex crimes, the double lives of Australian citizen Mark J. Newton and his long-term boyfriend Peter Truong were laid bare.
‘‘Being a father was an honour and a privilege that amounted to the best six years of my life,’’ the American-born Newton, 42, told the court.
Moments later Newton was sentenced to 40 years in prison for sexually abusing the boy he and Truong, 36 from Queensland, had ‘‘adopted’’ after paying a Russian woman $8000 to be their surrogate in 2005.
Police believe the pair had adopted the boy ‘‘for the sole purpose of exploitation’’. The abuse began just days after his birth and over six years the couple travelled the world, offering him up for sex with at least eight men, recording the abuse and uploading the footage to an international syndicate known as the Boy Lovers Network.
‘‘Personally .. I think this is probably the worst [paedophile] rings … if not the worst ring I’ve ever heard of,’’ investigator Brian Bone of the US Postal Inspection Service told reporters outside the US federal court room in Indiana.
US District Judge Sarah Evans Barker said the pair deserved a harsher punishment but were tried at district court level to avoid subjecting a jury to the repulsive images that had been produced.
‘‘What can be said? What can be done to erase some of the horror of this?’’ Judge Barker said in handing down her sentence.
Truong has also pleaded guilty and will be sentenced at a later date.
…

Evidence before the court revealed the abuse began before the couple returned to Australia. One video is said to show Newton performing a sex act on the boy when he was less than two weeks old.
Judge Barker said the pair brainwashed the child to believe the sexual abuse was normal. Newton was also said to have trained the boy to deny any inappropriate behaviour if he was ever questioned by authorities.

Haven’t you heard Jonathan? ‘We have always been at war with Eurasia’. @@
Meanwhile the government inquiry into pedophilia in the Newcastle Archdiocese grinds on slowly* …
Dingo
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* but exceedingly fine

jonathangray, I searched and searched and finally found an example of child abuse perpetrated by a straight couple, right here in my own hometown. It was quite an effort, but I found it. Now, will you agree we should forbid heterosexual marriage? Here’s the link: http://www.kval.com/news/local/115758604.html

Gray is a catholic crackpot who wants to bring back the dark ages. His enemies include democracy, Protestants, reality, and anything that happened in the last 600 years.

He’s been banned from many websites and uses multiple aliases, once known as Piltdown man.

Waste your time if you want, but that is all you will be doing.

My Protestant ancestors did one thing right. They fought the Catholic church during the Reformation wars. AND WON!!! (This honor is diluted by the fact that some of those Catholics they fought were, my other ancestors).

You know, whenever someone brings up some heinous crime by a gay person as some sort of evidence all gay people are evil, I just have to think – what percentage of the people currently locked up for murder are straight men?

jonathangray, I am glad to see your concern about the children! Sexual assault from adults the child trusts is especially heinous, I think you would agree. Join, fellow smut warrior, in ending the infestation of American by the Roman Catholic Church pedophilia ring. These offenders, along with their accomplices and protectors, have molested and scarred countless children for generations – probably centuries – in most of the world. At least pedophiliac gay parents are uncommon enough that you apparently had to go to Australian news services to find an example.
.
Whaddya say, neighbor, are you with me in attempting to remove this cesspool of perversion from the righteous land of the US of A?

jonathangray, I wouldn’t be holding Peter Truong and partner Mark Newton up as shining examples of homosexuals who are good parents. Mark Newton just received a 40 year sentence in the US for sexually abusing his adopted son from two weeks of age – although reports have said that he wasn’t really adopted as the couple fudged the adoption papers after buying the boy from a Russian woman – and for offering him to at least eight other pedophiles around the world, presumably for large amounts of money. Peter Truong, who calls himself an Australian, but who Australia wants nothing to do with, awaits trial on the same charges. At least two other men, an American lawyer and a tennis coach have also been charged in the large pedophile and pornography ring, which one judge has called committed some of the worst child abuse she has ever heard.
What surprises me is that the homosexual community isn’t condemning these men like almost every other group in Australia, Russia and the US. Couples like this have set the homosexual adoption cause back a mile, with Russia now banning all adoptions by gay couples and agencies around the world now rethinking whether it’s a good thing.